Legislation

Noting that “life without parole” sentencing robs incarcerated individuals of any rehabilitative hope, is a type of sentencing with a racially discriminatory impact, and is a wasteful use of public resources, we supported legislation to eliminate this criminal sentence in Rhode Island.

Domestic workers – a demographic of employees largely comprised of lower-income women of color – are inappropriately exempted from the state’s minimum wage laws. We supported the repeal of this exemption.

We strongly supported legislation that eliminates the requirement that an applicant to become a licensed clinical social worker pass a standardized written test to obtain a license.

We opposed legislation which would have inappropriately imposed a broad criminal record check requirement on individuals who seek to be engaged in the business-side of the medical marijuana industry, as well as on patients who may need this medicine to manage a health condition.

Though we support recreational marijuana legalization, we raised a number of concerns about this bill and called for amendments to strengthen the language.

With artificial intelligence rapidly becoming ubiquitous in governmental decision-making, we supported legislation which would have examined the way that AI is used in our state.

As communities nationwide grapple with the best ways to promote transparency and accountability in law enforcement agencies, the implementation of body cameras has become a major part of the discussion.

In a move to ban a pervasive form of racial discrimination, we strongly supported a bill which would have expanded the definition of race under our state anti-discrimination laws to include “traits historically associated with race,” importantly including hair texture and protective hairstyles.

As a state with one of the most protective Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights statutes in the country, it is long past time for significant revisions to be made to this law. A number of bills to do that were introduced this session.